In this heart-warming short story, meet wife and mother Eugeena Patterson. Eugeena has always been the glue keeping her fragmented family together. When her teenage daughter is rushed to the hospital, Eugeena’s usual attempts to maintain peace in her family reach a breaking point. Will her troubled teenage daughter rip the family apart?

In the past year Detective Josephine "Jo" Reed-Powell brought down one of the most notorious serial killers in a decade in Charlotte-Mecklenburg County. When Jo arrives at a new crime scene, something seems very familiar to her. She immediately thinks she may be dealing with a copycat killer. Or is she? How can she keep her mind on finding a killer when her life is falling apart? Jo is struggling with her shattered marriage knowing her husband, Bryan Powell, has had an affair. As Jo questions the twists and turns of her murder investigations, can she let God mend her broken heart?

When Maddy Montgomery’s groom is a no-show to their livestream wedding, it’s a disaster that no amount of filtering can fix. But a surprise inheritance offers a chance to regroup and rebrand—as long as Maddy is willing to live in her late, great-aunt Octavia’s house in New Bison, Michigan, for a year, running her bakery and caring for a 250-pound English mastiff named Baby. Maddy feels ready to tackle any challenge, including Octavia’s award-winning cake recipes. That is, until New Bison’s mayor is fatally stabbed, and Maddy’s fingerprints are found on the knife.…

When Koby Hill and Keaton Rutledge were orphaned at age two, they were separated, but their unbreakable connection lingered. Years later, they reunite and decide to make up for lost time and capitalize on their shared interests by opening up a well-stocked bookstore and cozy soul-food cafe in the quaint Pacific Northwest town of Timber Lake. But this new chapter of their lives could end on a cliffhanger after Koby's foster brother is found murdered.

Until now, Odessa Jones's inherited ability to read emotions and foretell danger has protected her. But second sight didn't warn her she would soon be a widow - and about to lose her home and the catering business she's worked so hard to build. The only things keeping Dessa going are her love for baking and her sometimes-mellow cat, Juniper. Unfortunately, putting her life back together means taking a gig at an all-kinds-of-shady real estate firm run by volatile owner Charlie Risko. Until Charlie is brutally killed - and Dessa's bullied coworker is arrested for murder.

Dayna Anderson doesn't set out to solve a murder. All the semi-famous, mega-broke actress wants is to help her parents keep their house. So after witnessing a deadly hit-and-run, she pursues the 15-grand reward. But Dayna soon finds herself doing a full-on investigation, wanting more than just money - she wants justice for the victim. She chases down leads at paparazzi hot spots, celeb homes, and movie premieres, loving every second of it - until someone tries to kill her. And there are no second takes in real life.

As the owner of Mahalia’s Sweet Tea, Halia Watkins is famous in Maryland’s Prince George’s County for her down-home cuisine. But when she has the chance to showcase her talents on national TV, she becomes the star of a murder mystery that’s too hot to handle!

Mahalia's Sweet Tea boasts the most flavorful soul food in all of Prince George's County, Maryland. But as events at the beauty industry's leading trade show turn ugly, owner Halia Watkins needs to bite into an unsavory new item on the menu - murder!

Babe is a charismatic and widely loved man, a gambler with a gift for gab that often gets him out of tricky situations. He’s also a dreamer, something he shares with his patient and loving wife, Rosie. They both yearn for financial stability and see the land they own as insurance for future generations. But when Babe and a few comrades enlist in a scheme that improbably falls apart, he endangers the little security the family has. On the verge of losing everything, what’s a family man to do? If you’re a gambler like Babe, you double down and risk it all for one big score.

Raising four very different daughters on her own in rural Arkansas wasn't easy for Miss Pearly Bell. And she's always regretted that the sisters went their separate ways for good - and never wanted to see each other again. But when Pearly is stricken with a terminal illness, she summons them all home - determined to somehow help them get right with each other and forgive.... But that means dealing with past secrets and lies first.

Halia Watkins has her hands full cooking, hosting, and keeping her boisterous young cousin, Wavonne, from getting too sassy with customers. Having fast-talking entrepreneur Marcus Rand turn up in her kitchen is annoying enough when he's alive - but finding his dead body face-down on her ceramic tile after hours is much worse. Marcus had his enemies, and the cast iron frying pan beside his corpse suggests that at last, his shady business deals went too far. Halia is desperate to keep Sweet Tea's name out of the sordid spotlight but her efforts only make Wavonne a prime suspect.

"Run away from the boy that gives you butterflies, he's going to break your heart." Morgan Atkins had been told that phrase ever since she was a little girl, and still she allowed herself to fall for the boy that made her heart flutter. After losing her first love, Morgan is terrified to love again. She's settled for a comfortable life with a respectable man. She has everything. She's living in the lap of luxury, and although she's comfortable, she's bored out of her mind. When a ghost from her past blows into town, she finds herself entangled in an illicit affair.

When the body of reality TV star Desiree Pierce is found on a playground in the Bronx the morning after her twenty-fifth birthday party, the police and the media are quick to declare her death an overdose. A tragedy, certainly, but not a crime. Yet Columbia grad student Lena—principled, headstrong, and allergic to the spotlight—knows that can’t be the case. Despite the bitter truth that the two hadn’t spoken in two years, they were half-sisters. Lena knew Desiree. And Desiree would never travel above 125th Street. Something is very wrong with the facts. So why is no one listening?

Little Caribbean, Brooklyn, New York: Lyndsay Murray is opening Spice Isle Bakery with her family, and it’s everything she’s ever wanted. The only thing getting a rise out of Lyndsay is Claudio Fabrizi, a disgruntled fellow bakery owner who does not want any competition. On opening day, he comes into the bakery threatening to shut them down. Fed up, Lyndsay takes him to task in front of what seems to be the whole neighborhood. So when Claudio turns up dead a day later—murdered—Lyndsay is unfortunately the prime suspect.

Henry North is a down-on-his-luck cybersecurity expert from New Orleans. Adam Zhang is the cofounder of one of Austin’s most successful venture capitalist firms. These two men didn’t know each other. They had never met. Yet they died together, violently, in a place neither had any business being. When Henry doesn’t return from a business trip, his wife, Kirsten, panics - and then gets an anonymous phone call: “Your husband is dead in Austin.”

Everyone wants a piece of millionaire Bennett Marshfield, owner of Marshfield Manor, but now it's up to new curator Grace Wheaton and handsome groundskeeper Jack Embers to protect dear old Marshfield. But to do this, they'll have to investigate a botched Ponzi scheme, some torrid Wheaton family secrets-and sour grapes out for revenge.

Ellery Hathaway knows a thing or two about serial killers, but not through her police training. She's an officer in sleepy Woodbury, Massachusetts, where a bicycle theft still makes the newspapers. No one there knows she was once victim number 17 in the grisly story of serial killer Francis Michael Coben. The only victim who lived. When three people disappear from her town in three years, all around her birthday - the day she was kidnapped so long ago - Ellery fears someone knows her secret. Someone very dangerous.

Lyla Moody loves her sleepy little town of Sweet Mountain, Georgia. She likes her job as a receptionist for her uncle's private investigative firm, her fellow true-crime obsessed Jane Doe members are the friends she's always wanted, and her parents just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. But recently, with her best friend Melanie on vacation and her ex-boyfriend and horrible cousin becoming an item and moving in next door to her, her idyllic life is on the fritz. The cherry on top of it all is finding Carol, a member of the club, dead and shoved into a suitcase.

Cupcake-loving croupier Tiffany Black is determined to leave her job at the casino for good. She's one small step away from acquiring her private investigator license and has her eye on the prize. Accepting her first real case - investigating the murder of casino-mogul Ethan Becker - should be exciting. Instead, things spiral out of control, and Tiffany finds herself in over her head as she confronts secretive suspects, corrupt casino henchmen, and a bodyguard with a mysterious past.

He stopped, hovering above her lips, giving her the opportunity to back away...create space between them. Instead, she leaned into him, met his kiss. The moments evaporated as he held her, a touch as light as if she were a cherry blossom he could crush. Get caught up in romance and suspense with this novella from award-winning author Cara Putman. Things were business as usual for family law attorney Ciara Turner, until she walked into her mentor’s office to find the judge had been murdered.

When a local girl falls prey to a sadistic serial killer, Nashville homicide lieutenant Taylor Jackson and her lover, FBI profiler Dr. John Baldwin, find themselves in a joint investigation pursuing a vicious murderer. The Southern Strangler is slaughtering his way through the Southeast, leaving a gruesome memento at each crime scene – the prior victim’s severed hand.

Popular podcaster and ex-reporter Faith Byrne has made a name for herself telling stories of greatness after tragedy—but her real life does not mirror the stories she tells. When she's asked to spotlight her childhood best friend's missing person case on her podcast, she uncovers desperate secrets and must face the truth before she can move forward.

Quinn Victoria Caine is back in her quirky town of Vienna, Virginia, starting her new life as a bookbinder in her family-owned bookshop. With her trusty German Shephard RBG - Ruff Barker Ginsburg - by her side, what can go wrong? Okay, sure, bumping into her ex Scott or her former high-school nemesis Tricia is a drag. It certainly doesn't help that they’ve acquired the new hobby of shoving their recent engagement in her face every chance they get. But that doesn't mean Quinn wanted to find Tricia dead in the road. So why does half the town think she may have done it?

Legal investigator Finley O’Sullivan searches for evidence the police overlooked, wading through secrets, lies, and betrayal to find answers. With the unsolved murder of her husband still very much on her mind, Finley must confront her own personal trauma on a daily basis. Lies are part of her livelihood, but they’re also the reason she can’t get justice for the man she loved. When a man imprisoned for murder recants his confession, claiming he cleaned up the mess for his girlfriend—the victim’s own daughter—Finley takes on the case.

Maddie James has arrived in Daybreak Island, just off the coast of Massachusetts, eager to settle down and start her own business - and maybe even fall in love. When a stray orange tabby pounces into her life, she's inspired to open a cat cafe. But little does Maddie know that she's in for something a lot more catastrophic when her new furry companion finds the dead body of the town bully. Now all eyes are on Maddie: Who is this crazy cat-whisperer lady who's come to town?

Adams County, Alabama, is a friendly place where everyone knows each other—but not well enough, it seems. Someone among them is a serial killer who first romances, then stalks, kidnaps, and kills his victims. It's the first big case for sheriff Bernie Granger, and a chance to prove herself to her new partner, Memphis police detective Jim Norton. But this killer is uncannily smart. It's as if he knows what Bernie is thinking. And his next move is more than shocking—it's chillingly personal.

Clare Fergusson, St. Alban's new priest, fits like a square peg in the conservative Episcopal parish at Miller's Kill, New York. She is not just a "lady"; she's a tough ex-Army chopper pilot, and nobody's fool. Then a newborn infant left at the church door brings her together with the town's police chief, Russ Van Alstyne, who's also ex-Army and a cynical good shepherd for the stray sheep of his hometown.

Texas genealogist Lucy Lancaster deals with murders in both the past and present in this captivating first mystery in the Ancestry Detective series.

Detective Peter Decker of the LAPD is stunned when he gets the report. Someone has shattered the sanctuary of a remote yeshiva community in the California hills with an unimaginable crime. One of the women was brutally raped as she returned from the mikvah, the bathhouse where the cleansing ritual is performed.

"You don't know me yet, but in a few hours that's going to change. You see, I'm inviting you to my home and my town of Cedar Cove, because I want you to meet my family, friends, and neighbors. Come and hear their stories - maybe even their secrets!"

In this heart-warming short story, meet wife and mother Eugeena Patterson. Eugeena has always been the glue keeping her fragmented family together. When her teenage daughter is rushed to the hospital, Eugeena’s usual attempts to maintain peace in her family reach a breaking point. Will her troubled teenage daughter rip the family apart?

When Maddy Montgomery’s groom is a no-show to their livestream wedding, it’s a disaster that no amount of filtering can fix. But a surprise inheritance offers a chance to regroup and rebrand—as long as Maddy is willing to live in her late, great-aunt Octavia’s house in New Bison, Michigan, for a year, running her bakery and caring for a 250-pound English mastiff named Baby. Maddy feels ready to tackle any challenge, including Octavia’s award-winning cake recipes. That is, until New Bison’s mayor is fatally stabbed, and Maddy’s fingerprints are found on the knife.…

It’s a hot and sticky Sunday in Lafayette, Louisiana, and Glory has settled into her usual after-church routine, meeting gamblers at the local coffee shop, where she works as a small-time bookie. Sitting at her corner table, Glory hears that her best friend—a nun beloved by the community—has been found dead in her apartment. When the police declare the mysterious death a suicide, Glory is convinced that there must be more to the story and, with her reluctant daughter in tow, launches a shadow investigation in a town of oil tycoons, church gossips, and a rumored voodoo priestess.

Halia Watkins has her hands full cooking, hosting, and keeping her boisterous young cousin, Wavonne, from getting too sassy with customers. Having fast-talking entrepreneur Marcus Rand turn up in her kitchen is annoying enough when he's alive - but finding his dead body face-down on her ceramic tile after hours is much worse. Marcus had his enemies, and the cast iron frying pan beside his corpse suggests that at last, his shady business deals went too far. Halia is desperate to keep Sweet Tea's name out of the sordid spotlight but her efforts only make Wavonne a prime suspect.

Depressed from the complications of a head injury, Serena Manchester seeks solitude in the hometown she left almost 25 years before. Unknown to Serena, her hometown's landscape has changed and unseemly elements have seeped into the quaint Southern seaport town.